Children at Heartlands Hospital to benefit from generous family donation!

Kathleen Gannon from Solihull donated an incredible £700 to the Heartlands Children Ward after losing her partner James Gannon earlier this year. James was being treated at the Heartlands Hospital after suffering from a stroke.

Kathleen and her daughter Caroline Hogan were so thankful for the high level of support and care James received whilst staying at Heartlands Hospital and wanted to give something back in his memory. At his funeral, the family asked for donations instead of flowers.

Kathleen said "I love children and I was really pleased by the care Heartlands Hospital gave to my husband so we wanted the money donated to go to the children's ward. When James was being treated here we saw all the posters for the children's wards and decided we wanted the money to go towards that."

Caroline said, "There were only 30 people at the funeral, it was limited numbers so we weren’t expecting a lot. Our family from Ireland weren't able to come due to covid restrictions so they donated larger amounts. We thought we would only raise a few hundred pounds at most we are delighted and over the moon to have raised this much."

UHB Charity has been carrying out an ongoing refurbishment on wards 15 and 16 to make them more inviting and child friendly. The money donated from Kathleen's family will help support this project as well as funding new equipment the children can use.

Julie Rowland, Senior Ward Sister said "It means so much to us, without this kindness we wouldn't be able to do these things. It gives the nurses such a boost working in a lovely environment, the work that has been done on the walls is fantastic. It cheers everyone up. Our adolescent room has just been done up too and it looks fantastic."

Claire Adams, Pay Assistant for the children’s wards said "A donation like this will help fund new equipment for the garden. We would love to get somewhere to store the equipment that is easily accessible. The type of equipment we would be looking for are soft footballs, hoops, dolls & pushchairs as well as wipeable bean bag toys. It will be lovely for children to come out to this area and play when it gets warmer. It would also be great to have balance bikes to offer them an activity to help them through their recovery."

If you would like to raise money to help support a specific ward or department across our four hospital sites simply click here to get involved today!